confessions of r yitchok nuchem twerski shipkov

8/11/2019 Confessions of r Yitchok Nuchem Twerski Shipkov

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ASSAF 1

My Tiny, Ugly World: The Confession of

Rabbi Yitzhak Nahum Twersky of Shpikov

David Assaf

Abstract

This article presents and discusses a rare document in the his-

tory of Hasidism: A confession written in 1910 by Rabbi

Yitzhak Nahum Twersky of Shpikov (1888-1942), scion of a

very prestigious Hasidic lineage of Chernobyl. In this exciting

and moving text, he dramatically expresses his troubles, torn

soul, and feelings of hatred toward the Hasidic world of his

time.

How old are you? I asked.

Sixteen. But this isnt the only idea Ive had. You must under-

stand that every rabbinical family is distinguished by a special

talent. We are the philosophers and the rhetoricians among the

rabbis. We like to speculate. Its a marvelous game, but its also

a trial. Its like walking on a narrow bridge. One false step, and

you fall into heresy. But if the Lord is with you, if you dont

stumble and can keep your Jewishness intact, you cherish your

idea doubly, because it achieves union with the Creator whosent it into the world. [] I like to take walks by myself and

think about Hasidism. Faithful to my theory, I try to grasp ideas

that will occur to me years later. Thats why my eyes look so

much older than I really am. I want to discover things. I dont

like my grandfathers way and I dont like my fathers. I dont

like the way of my older brothers. I told Father that I was not

too satisfied with his way [] then he confided in me that he

was even less satisfied than I.1

Shpikov Hasidism

This confession published here, in the words of its author, the confes-

sion of my life, withered and faded before its time, the confession of mytortured, afflicted soul, the confession of my squandered talentsis

one of the most moving and unique testimonies of its kind in the history

of Hasidism. Its author, Yitzhak Nahum (Nachuml) Twersky of

Shpikov, decided, with great courage, to make a reckoning of his life


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2 CONTEMPORARY JEWRY

and expose the depths of his troubled and confused soul to a complete

stranger.

The confession was mailed at the beginning of 1910, when its

author was but 22, to the Yiddish writer Jacob Dineson (1856-1919),

who was then living in Warsaw. This letter, numbering 27 copybook

pages, is written in rich and fluent Hebrew, almost without a single era-

sure.2

Out of the pages of the confession emerges the riveting figure of a

sensitive and intelligent young man, an aesthete with poetical tenden-

cies, weary of life in the Hasidic court, lamenting his youth and his tal-

ents that will be wasted, filled with fear of what the future may bring,and despairing of the prospect of changing his fate.

Yitzhak Nahum was born in 1888, a son of one of the branches of

the Twersky family, which had established the Chernobyl Hasidic

dynasty and its many offshoots. From the beginning of the 19th century,

this privileged family of rebbes (along with the Ruzhin Hasidic dynasty)

ruled over most of the Hasidic communities in the southwestern prov-

inces of the Pale of Settlement. Yitzhak Nahum was born and raised in

Shpikov (today Shpykiv, Ukraine), then a small town in the Podolia

province, 56 kilometers sou th of Vinnitsa, very close to Nemirov,

Bratslav and Tulchin.

Shpikov Hasidism was then a new and small branch. It was estab-

lished in 1885 by Yitzhaks grandfather, R. Menachem Nahum(Nachumchi) after the death of his father, the Zaddik Yitzhak of Skvira

(1812-1885), thus forcing his sons to divide between them his assets as

well as his followers. As was customary within the nobility from among

the zaddikim, who always preferred to marry within the extended, dis-

tinguished family, Nachumchi married his cousin Sheyndl, the daughter

of the famous Zaddik David of Talne (1808-1882). Like her husband,

Sheyndl was also the granddaughter of the dynastys forerunner, R.

Mordechai (Motl) of Chernobyl (1770-1837).

Nachumchi died in Shpikov in 1886, before he was able to establish

his new court. His only son, Mordechai (Motele), who was at the time

25 years old, succeeded him. Motele, like his father, also married within

the extended family, and took for his wife Hava, the youngest daughter

of the Zaddik Yohanan of Rechmistrivke (1816-1895), the youngest son

of Mordechai of Chernobyl. Yitzhak Nahum, the writer of the following

confession, was the son of the R. Mordechai of Shpikov and his wife

Hava.


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ASSAF 3

Rabbi Yitzhak Nahum Twersky

Sometime around March or April 1910, a short time after writing his

confession, the young Yitzhak Nahum married Sheve (Batsheva), the

daughter of R. Issachar Dov Rokeach (1854-1926), the revered Admor

of Belz in Eastern Galicia. This rebbe himself was married to the grand-

daughter of R. Aharon of Chernobyl (1787?-1871; the eldest son of R.

Mordechai of Chernobyl), and after his marriage he remained in the

Chernobyl court for about a decade. Issachar Dov of Belz grew to

admire this branch of Hasidism and considered it a great privilege to

have married into it and made every effort to marry off his descendents

to this dynasty as well. Yitzhak Nahum already had been engaged to

Issachar Dovs daughter for six years but had still not seen the face ofhis future bride, though he had heard some rumors regarding her beauty

and character. In his confession, he clearly expresses his trepidations

about the bride that had been chosen for him without his consent, and

his fear of the life awaiting him in the Hasidic court of Belz.

The wedding took place in Belz and, as was customary, Yitzhak

Nahum went to live with his in-laws, who provided for his sustenance.3

The Belzer rebbe, known to be extremely conservative, was a severe

opponent of any trace of modernity. It would seem, however, that the

youthful rebellion that had been brewing within the breast of the young

Yitzhak Nahum, and which was vociferously expressed in the pages of

his confession, was assuaged, at least outwardly. The Belz court was

famous for its fortified walls made up of the thousands of Hasidim who

flocked to it, and we can only guess how Yitzhak Nahum endured hisfirst days within the Hasidic court of which he had been so wary. More-

over, in complete opposition to his expectations, the match was a suc-

cess; he was fond of his bride and she was of him. 4According to

Hasidic sources, Yitzhak Nahum quickly acclimated himself to the Belz

way of life, and the Belz Hasidim greatly honored and appreciated him,

for his nobility and his sensitivity, the beauty of his features and the

cleanliness of his clothes, his moderated speech, his respect of others

and his hospitality.5

Rabbis who are not from among us, who come to Belz, describes

a late Belz source, are met with by R. Yitzhak Nahum, in order to show

them that besides Hasidism, there is also Torah scholarship in Belz.

Prominent guests, curious to get a whiff of Belz, find great interest in

his home, as he is knowledgeable about all the problems that have come

up from time to time in the life of the Jews in Poland. 6

Four years later, R. Yitzhak Nahum traveled back to Shpikov to

visit his ailing father. His father passed away on Passover 1914, and the


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Hasidic followers immediately crowned his son the new rebbe, prevent-

ing his return to Belz, where his family remained. A few months later

World War I broke out. The events of the war shook the Hasidic court of

Shpikov as well as other Jewish communities in the Ukraine and Gali-

cia. Shpikov suffered civil war, raids by soldiers and murderous bands,

and outbreaks of typhus that ravaged many towns in the Ukraine. R.

Yitzhak Nahum, his mother, and his sisters miraculously survived those

catastrophic events.7

The Russian army also had conquered Austrian Belz. The Czars

soldiers destroyed the town and set fire to the rebbes court. The Jews of

Belz fled their homes and along with them the rebbe and his entourage,

among them R. Yitzhak Nahums wife and children. Initially, the courtof Belz moved to Ratsfert (Ujfehrt) in Hungary, where it remained for

the duration of the war. Only in the summer of 1918, after four years of

separation, was R. Yitzhak Nahum able to leave the Ukraine and reunite

with his family in Hungary. A year later, in April 1919, the members of

the Belz court were forced to relocate once more. This time, they made

for Munkatsh (Mukachevo) in the Carpathians, where they fell into a

bit ter dispute with Munkatsh Hasidim, led by the extremist Hasidic

rebbe Hayyim Elazar Shapira (1872-1937). This controversy escalated

from mean-spirited nitpicking into a war of false accusations and slan-

der. In 1922 the Belzer rebbe and his family, along with R. Yitzhak

Nahum and his family, returned to Galicia. By then the town of Belz had

been completely destroyed, leaving the rebbe and his court to settle tem-

porarily in the nearby town Oleszyce. Only in 1925 did Belz Hasidismreturn to its original hometown.

In 1926, R. Yitzhak Nahum left Belz and with the help of his father-

in-law was appointed rabbi of the town of Rawa Ruska, about 35 kilo-

meters from Belz. The Belz court dominated this town and a large num-

ber of Belz adherents resided there. R. Yitzhak Nahum easily could have

continued to rule as anAdmor, but he preferred, as he wrote in the con-

fession before us, to be a rabbi and not a rebbe. In Rawa Ruska, he

played the glorious role of the aristocratic Hasidic rabbi, who sanctifies

the Lord in all his doings.8In the beginning of 1942, he and his family

met their death at the murderous hands of the Nazis and their henchmen,

apparently at the Belzec death camp.

Freedom, freedom! The Twersky Sisters

Why did young Yitzhak Nahum, the rebbes son, choose to send his con-

fession to Dineson, whose own literary star at that time was already on

the wane? Dineson, although famous for his sentimental and sensitive


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ASSAF 5

writing, had written very little in his later years and was known mainly

for his activities as the secretary and loyal assistant of the admirable

author Y.L. Peretz. The explanation for the surprising connection

between Twersky and Dineson must be found not through R. Yitzhak

Nahum, but rather through his older sisters.

Yitzhak Nahum was the first son born to his parents after four

daughters. At the time he wrote his confession, three of his sisters were

married already and apparently all were living in Shpikov. The oldest

sister, Feige, married R. Shalom Yosef Friedman of Buhush (1868-

1920) in the summer of 1897. Her husband, the only Admorof the

Ruzhin Hasidic house living in Russia, set up his own court in Shpikov

alongside that of his father-in-law, and Ruzhin adherents living in Rus-sia frequented it. As far as is known, one court did not impinge on the

other, and their relations were friendly.

The second sister, Haya (Haykeleh), married a family relation,

Menachem Nahum Twersky (1874-1942), the grandson of the Zaddik

Abraham of Trisk (Volhynia), who was also a son of Mordechai of

Chernobyl. She was famous for her erudition, and from a young age she

was attracted to Haskalah literature and to a life of emotion and imagi-

nation.9Her marriage was not particularly successful. Her husband,

who had wanted to continue the Hasidic lifestyle, never became accus-

tomed to his wifes free spirit. After years of mutual discontent and sep-

aration, they divorced. Haya, who retained custody of their children,

lived for a time in Warsaw, where she became acquainted with Y.L.

Peretz and Jacob Dineson. Haya returned to Shpikov before the begin-ning of World War I. After the war she moved with her children to Ber-

lin (1921-1926), from where she immigrated to New York. Her

husband, Nahum, returned to Trisk and began to wander between vari-

ous towns, trailing after the Hasidim of his father (who died in 1918).

He remarried and settled in Warsaw. After the Nazi invasion he appar-

ently returned to Trisk, where he was murdered in the summer of 1942.

It seems that Mirl, the youngest sister, was the most unusual of the

sisters, and it was she who negotiated between her brother and Dineson.

Like Haya, she too was drawn to the world of literature and Haskalah,

and she even wrote some poems that she sent to Dineson, who seemed

to encourage and nurture her talents.10In 1902 she married Asher Per-

low (1885-1942), the oldest son of the Admor Israel of Stolin (Belarus),

who was known by his nickname the Yenuka(i.e. a child officiating as a

zaddik). R. Asher (Asherke) did not become a rebbe. Like the rest of his

family, he had innate musical talent, and under the influence of his wife

he traveled to Berlin to study music at the conservatorium. Without a


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doubt, this was an unusual feat in the conservative Hasidic world.

Asherke went to Germany without his familys permission, and they, not

liking the scandal, tried very means of bringing him back home. It

seems that in this instance as well Mirls free spirit could not conform to

the familys pressure and her husbands Hasidic upbringing: Asherke

returned to Stolin, divorced Mirl and remarried. Hasidic lore recounts

that with the sons return his father threw away the violin and decreed

that because this holy instrument had become desecrated it must never

be played again in his court. From that moment on, theMelave Malka

feasts in this court were accompanied with song, but without musical

instruments.11

After her divorce, Mirl returned to Shpikov. The letter that Mirlwrote to her sister Haya, after the latter was finally awarded her long-

awaited divorce, reflects the special nature of the sisters and the spiritual

intimacy between them and their brother Yitzhak Nahum:

Hurrah! You have won, my dearest! Who would have seen

even in their dreams that this happy and good moment would

arrive? Freedom, freedom! Praises for your bravery, that you

have traversed this dark hell with your head high! How we

danced, went out of our minds, Haykeleh, we were like crazy

people. I dont exaggerate. We kissed, laughed, jumped, ran

from one room to another.12

The correspondence between Mirl and Dineson began at least ayear before the writing of the confession, in 1909. Yitzhak Nahum men-

tioned this correspondence at the outset of the letter, and though he did

not mention his sister Mirl by name, there can be doubt that it was to her

that he referred. It seems that in one of her letters Mirl had mentioned

her young brothers doubts and Dineson, in his reply, asked that she not

show her brother his response in order that he not be offended. Notwith-

standing, Mirl showed Dinesons letter to her brother, and it appears that

his response so challenged Twersky that he felt compelled to strike up a

direct connection with the Warsaw author. Prior to sending his confes-

sion, Twersky sent Dineson his photograph, so that the famous writer

might see the terrible disparity between his external appearance and his

internal world.

It is worthwhile noting the place of Yitzhak Nahums sisters in his

world. He himself testifies that in his sisters rooms, where he can speak

with them about life and literature, he finds refuge from the suffocat-

ing life of the court. Indeed, it is not surprising that in this traditional


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ASSAF 7

society, it was the women who first absorbed modernity and secular val-

ues. They learned to read and write in foreign languages from teachers

who were themselves partly maskilim; they were allowed to read for

pleasure in their spare time, including French and Russian books; and in

general, supervision of girls always was more lax than it was for boys.

In his memoirs, the writer Yohanan Twersky (1900-1967), Yitzhak

Nahums nephew, recounts that the women in the Shpikov court, includ-

ing the rebbetsinHava, Yitzhak Nahums mother, used to read secular

books brought to them by a traveling bookseller who sold books to the

court. Among his collection of books were the novels of Nahum Meir

Shaykevitsh (Shomer), Ozer Blaustein, Yitzhak Yoel Linetski, Ayzik

Meir Dik, and the like.13

We can assume that Yitzhak Nahum also mayhave been familiar with these kinds of books; as he himself stated, he

enjoyed spending time with his sisters.

In addition, it seems that Yitzhak Nahum was unsuccessful at cov-

ering up his inclinations. In town, tales were spread that alongside his

Torah studies, he also studied secular works.14According to a reliable

source, within the Shpikov court was a 40,000-volume library that R.

Yitzhak of Skvira left to his son Nachumchi. In this library, in addition

to the biblical, talmudic and rabbinic classical works, were many old

manuscripts and books of Kabbalah and philosophy. Mordechai Glub-

man, who for a short period of time was Yitzhak Nahums tutor,

recounted that over the course of an entire year he and his students orga-

nized the books to place it in proper order and in a proper list.

Yitzhak Nahums work within this great library must have opened new

horizons for him as well.15

Even after Yitzhak Nahum settled in Belz and his rebellious spirit

was somewhat tamed (at least outwardly), he still kept up his correspon-

dence with his sisters. Thus, for example, we know that on his way to

Marienbad, the popular spa of the Galician rebbes, Yitzhak Nahum trav-

eled to Berlin to visit his sister Haya and her children. Her son, Yoha-

nan, was then learning philosophy and psychology at the University of

Berlin, and Yitzhak Nahum quizzed him about his studies and the inno-

vative theories of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Kurt Lewin.16

A Sacrifice on My Mothers Altar: The Value of the Confession

The main importance of Twerskys confession is its literary and psycho-

logical content; its value as a historical document that might shed light

on the history and development of Hasidism is marginal and problem-

atic.


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His criticism of the haggling and costermonger nature of contempo-

rary Hasidism, the traditional dress, the fanaticism, conservatism, and

the Hasidic indolence, is in fact very severe. At times it is as if Twersky

read and absorbed the satiric style of writing of the 19thcentury anti-

Hasidic maskilim and their followers, who became the first generation

of researchers of Hasidism. Both they and he showed great disdain and

contempt for what they perceived as the vulgar manifestations of Hasid-

ism. Twerskys comic-grotesque description of the customary dress and

the primitive behavior of the Belz Hasidim in Galicia, as well as his

solid judgment of the atrophied Hasidic court in the Ukraine, might

have originated from the sharpened pens of Joseph Perl or Isaac Ber

Levinsohn (Ribal). Even the terminology Twersky usesthe idioticcostume, hallucinations and nonsense, wild motions and customs,

degeneration, atrophyis taken from the vocabulary of the

maskilic and anti-Hasidic critical lexicon. His criticism of the institution

of matchmaking and marriage to a woman whom he had never even

seensituations that do not, in his words, fit anymore to the 20th cen-

turyalso are repeated over and again in the Jewish Haskalah literature

of the 19th century.

Beyond his own complicated soul, which led him to a life of inter-

nal conflicts, missing from his criticism of Hasidism is a systematic

ideological critique. It goes without saying that one should not expect

that this intimate genre of confession would offer a systematic ideologi-

cal or historical theory. Nevertheless, the overall impression is that hisdebate with Hasidism is only in the layer of personal experience. In his

entire letter, there is no echo of theoretical criticism of the religious and

ideological foundations of Hasidism or doctrine of the zaddik. He also

does not suggest an alternative to the Hasidic ways or a cure for its reha-

bilitation and revival. Beyond general reflections, in which the aesthetic

aspect is especially emphasized, he does not clearly explain what he

seeks and what he hopes to achieve regarding the desired future of

Hasidism. The problem of external appearances bothers him greatly, and

he also repeatedly expresses his views about the ugliness of the tradi-

tional Hasidic costume; the same is true of his attitude toward the beauty

of nature, which he believes Hasidism ignores. Yet one must question

whether this criticism, justifiable as it may be, indeed goes to the core of

the real problems facing Hasidism at the turn of the 20th century. He

protests, loudly and clearly, against the degeneration of Hasidism, but

he is unable to understand the roots and the causes of its present circum-

stances.


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ASSAF 9

Yitzhak Nahum also lacks a mature historical perspective, and his

approach to the mythic past of Hasidism in general and to his family in

particular is typical (after all, he was then only 22 years old). As a prod-

uct of traditional society, R. Yitzhak Nahum was taught to look at his-

tory through apologetic glasses of self-disparagement on one hand and

awe and admiration on the other, in the spirit of the famous saying of the

Sages: If the first generations are like angels, we are like human

beings (BT Shabbat, 112b). The crisis that he identified in the Hasid-

ism of his day was not, therefore, connected with the founders of the

movement, the Baal Shem Tov and his disciples, and not even with

Twerskys grandfathers generation, the founders of the Chernobyl

dynasty, to which he himself belonged. The breakdown happened, in hisopinion, in the last decade of the 19th century, in his fathers time:

For some twenty years, since my grandfathers, the famed zad-

dikim of Skver, Talne, and Rotmistruvka17all my ances-

torsand their brothers, the standard-bearers of Hasidism in

our province, who commanded thousands of faithful Hasidim,

died [] Since then, the light of Hasidism has dimmed and its

glory has gone into exile, and it has atrophied [], until now it

is little more than a debased coin, a name devoid of real con-

tent.

And the main reason for this degeneration was indeed connected to the

decline of the generations concept:

My ancestors did not leave after them sons like themselves,

men of understanding and intelligence, who might influence

and impart of their spirit to the congregation of Hasidim.

However, this historiographic theory derives from Yitzhak Nahums

internal world of his familys conflicts and not from the factual history

known to us. After all, the critical writing on 19th century Hasidism

considered, whether rightly or wrongly, Mordechai of Chernobyls eight

sons, the great-grandfathers of Yitzhak Nahum, to be the prominent rep-

resentatives of the degenerative symptoms that plagued Hasidism. In the

eyes of many maskilim, this dynasty was a symbol of the establishment

of the courtly rule of Hasidism, of the greed for wealth and glory and the

neglect of the original values of Hasidism. And here, R. Yitzhak Nahum

is actually proud of his oligarchic descent; he only blamed the zaddikim

of his generation for Hasidisms deterioration.


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Twerskys attitude toward his parents is surely a deep psychological

issue, which we cannot discuss here. Therefore, we should not be sur-

prised that his cold-natured father is hardly mentioned in the confes-

sion and does not play a significant role in his decisions. His mother is

the one close to his heart, and it is only his warm feelings for her that

prevent him from breaking free from the chains that bind him and

changing his fate. But his love and compassion for his mother also could

be interpreted as a sign of self- indictment and self-victimization: I

shall bare my soul, explaining the obvious truth to you: A sacrifice am I,

a sacrifice on my mothers altar. Grasping on to his mother as the rea-

son for his inability to take his own fate in his own hands actuates his

sense of disparagement and dependence. In such a dramatic moment ofhis life, when he feels so hopeless, he explains his impotence in his love

and care of his mother. My compassion for my beloved mother, must

be interpreted as self-compassion.

It is noteworthy that R. Yitzhak Nahum does not see himself as an

apostate and does not even consider secularism as a possibility to solve

his existential crisis. Doubting religiosity in and of itself is not his point,

even though one cannot ignore the surprising fact that the name of God

is not mentioned even once in the entire letter. He chooses to remain in

the world of traditional society but wishes to break free from the con-

straints of Hasidic society, which he believes no longer fit his needs.

Yitzhak Nahums troubled soul and spirit that yearns to be free are

trapped in the confines of the compulsory Hasidic togetherness, fromwhich it is so difficult for the individual to break away and redeem his

own identity. He feels that all his attempts to break out of the circle are

hopeless and doomed to failure at the outset. Like a lamb to the slaugh-

ter, he is unable to change his fate. He cannot get up and run away from

his Hasidic identity, which he so detests, not only because of his emo-

tional commitment to his mothers fate and his feelings of pity over the

embarrassment his actions would cause her, but also because of his

inability to cut himself off from his conscious status as the son of a zad-

dik, as a leader on whom many Hasidim hang their own hopes:

What is this? What am I? Is it possible that I am naught but a

hypocrite, a sham? Am I permitted thus to deceive people?

[]And besides, that step would be final proof that I am a her-

etic, a sworn unbeliever, and that in vain I have misled all those

who know me, letting them think me faithful to God and to His

holy ones.


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ASSAF 11

This sincere statement reminds us of the famous scene in Y.L. Peretzs

1903 dramaHurban beit Zaddik(collapse of the zaddiks house), known

also in its later Yiddish version as Di goldene keyt(1907), where the

zaddiks son cries with a broken heart before the open ark:

I am the last link of the chain. I am the last one here [] show

yourself, reveal yourself, give me a sign that Im not deceiving

and cheating the people. Because if you wont show yourself

and wont reveal yourself and wont give a sign, that meansI

am a swindler

And if I am a swindlermy father was a swindler too

Also my father, my grandfather, my great-grandfather too

The entire dynasty, the entire chain!18

Indeed, Twersky consoles himself on the off-chance that the damage

may be minimized if the crucial step of crossing the lines takes place

after he marries and settles in Belz. But, as we know, this step was never

taken.

We may find of special interest his indirect criticism of neo-roman-

tic trends that began to develop at that time towards Hasidism, mainly

among writers such as Y.L. Peretz, M.Y. Berdyczhewski, Yehuda Stein-

berg, Martin Buber, and others. These writers approach to Hasidismwas at the time described as romantic, as if they saw in Hasidism and its

values a source of inspiration that might awaken and refresh the Jewish

nation, even those that stood outside the Hasidic camp. But it seems that

this evaluation is not completely accurate and it is better to describe the

complicated attitude of these authors (at least some of them) to Hasid-

ism as reflecting a patronizing attitude that derived more from the anti-

Hasidic world of the mitnagdim and the maskilim than from the world

of the Hasidim. In this way Twersky was accurate in characterizing Ber-

dyczhewskis double standards towards Hasidism. He appreciates their

world, beliefs, and way of life just so long as he doesnt have to live

with them:

Well I remember what I read in Dr. Berdyczhewskis book The

Hasidim, where, after heaping copious praises on the Hasidic

theory, he concludes with a heartfelt cry, May I be so lucky as

to share their portion!19[] And, recalling that exclamation,


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I cannot hold back my laughter. Indeed, Herr Doktor! How

right you are! But how convenient it was for you to utter this

exclamation, on your lofty chair at Heidelberg University, far

removed from the Hasidim and their masses.20But what would

you say if it really fell to your lot to be among them always?

Methinks you would have spoken differently then, a very dif-

ferent call would have issued from your heart, and together

with me you would have cried, May I be so lucky as not to

share their portion.

Even in this criticism, Twersky was not alone. His words, spoken from a

deep familiarity with the daily realities that contradict the convivialdescriptions of the Hasidic courts, have much in common with the

mocking comments of other contemporary writers who condemned the

romantic authors. Here, for example, follows a quote from the Galician

maskil, Mordechai David Brandstetter (1844-1928), reflecting the same

criticism:

What does Peretz know of the Hasidim? And how much do

Berdyczhewski and Steinberg know about the life of the Hasi-

dim? Did they live among them as I did? Do they know of their

persecution of their opponents, of those who dared to change a

bit from their style of life? I saw all this from up close. I lived

among them. I resided with them and got to know them inside

out! If the Hasidim were still in powerwe would still walkthrough the dark until today! And to this day I still speak with

them and hear their conversations! Hasidism is based on false

beliefs, on worship of the zaddikblind worship! [] Peretz,

Berdyczhewski and Steinbergs stories are poetry, and the best

of poetry is its falsity. There is no connection between this

Hallelujah poetry and the reality. They see things from the

beatings of their hearts.21

The Current of that Generation: The Context

Come mothers and fathers

Throughout the land

And don't criticize

What you can't understand

Your sons and your daughters

Are beyond your command

Your old road is


13/34

ASSAF 13

Rapidly agin'

Please get out of the new one

If you can't lend your hand

For the times they are a-changin'

(Bob Dylan, The Times They are A-Changin)

The literary impetus into which this young and gifted zaddik poured out

his heart, his rich and engaging Hebrew, which could have turned his

letter into a manifestoit could have been a voice to many sensitive and

delicate young men who, growing up in the lap of Hasidism, had tor-

tured themselves in an hour of personal soul-searching with the biting

question of their future path. They fought with their tormented souls,tried to escape their world, but they were not always successful. Yitzhak

Nahum Tewrsky did not, however, intend to be a trumpet for the masses.

He wrote an intimate confession with the intention that it remain a secret

between him and his pen pal, the writer Dineson.

Even though he may have felt lonely, Twersky was not. Besides his

two sisters, who were active participants in his double life, he also men-

tions a group of young friends and acquaintances he would meet fre-

quently, and together they would read and talk about life and

literature. They did not understand the depths of his inner soul but were

aware enough of his conflicts to share them with him.

In many ways, Yitzhak Nahum Twersky is part of a special rank, a

small number of exceptional sons of zaddikim who grew up in the aris-

tocratic Hasidic courts during a period of dramatic changes in the his-

tory of Eastern European Jews. The deep rift within traditional society

profoundly affected them. These young and gifted sons, who were

exposed to the varied manifestations of modernity, who were able to

escape beyond the thick walls that bordered the Hasidic court, could not

remain indifferent to the powerful temptations and potential for creativ-

ity that were engendered by the Haskalah, modern literature, national-

ism, aesthetics, romanticism and philosophy, Jewish studies, and even

secularism. They reacted as did other elite members of the Eastern

European Jewish Orthodoxysome with fanatical objection, some with

embarrassment and despair, some attempting partial fulfillment in both

worlds, and some by escaping to the enticing world outside. There were

children of zaddikim who were drawn to socialism, Zionism and even

communism, and of course there were sons and daughters who went far

to the extreme and rebelled, leaving the fold and abandoning their fam-

ily and religion, filled with anger and a sense of revenge, completely

rejecting tradition and the world of commandments. Naturally, these


14/34


phenomenon were downplayed or covered up in the internal Hasidic

historiography and therefore have not been fully researched. We may

refer to the words of Aaron Zeev Aescoly in his essay on Hasidism in

Poland at that time:

There wasnt a house in which its sons and daughters were not

swept away into the current of that generation [] Moreover,

this phenomenoncombined with the move of Hasidic courts

into the citiesdid not pass over the houses of the zaddikim.

Against the background of city life, exhaustion which joined

indolence, the houses of the zaddikim could not resist the spirit

of the times. The sons and daughters of the zaddikim were the

first to feel that there was no future for them in the path of their

fathers, and they went out to look everywherefrom the

Mizrahito the communist party, all of which were a negative

phenomenon in the minds of the Hasidic essence. From this

generation one may conclude one interesting rule: In all the

Hasidic dynasties the eldest son, the inheritor, remained in the

fold, but the rest of the family, who did not have a hold on the

horns of the altar, left Hasidism and the paths of their fathers.22

Rabbi Yitzhak Nahum Twersky is, therefore, a clear example of the

bewilderment and despair experienced by many children of Hasidic rab-

bis at the turn of the 20th century. Awareness of the deep spiritual crisis

facing Jewish Orthodoxy in general and Hasidism in particular; the

great attraction of modern Jewish culture; the hopelessness of the indi-

vidual battling against the powerful direct and indirect pressures of fam-

ily and social milieu; the inability to extricate oneself from the old

worldall these are the significant signs of this pattern, which also are

the building blocks of modern Jewish identity.

The Confession of My Tortured, Afflicted, Soul: The Text

Sunday, [the week of parashat] Terumah

January 24, 1910,23Shpikov

Dear friend and beloved author, Mr. Jacob Dineson!

For a whole year now I have been endeavoring with all my will and

strength to write your honor a letter. For there is none other to whom I

can lay bare my mind and reveal the secrets of my life or, better, the

gloomy life of my environment; and there is none other who possesses a

warm, sensitive, feeling heart, that might fittingly resonate to all the

spasms and tremors of my soul. For behold, throughout that whole year,


15/34

ASSAF 15

since becoming acquainted with you and your gentle, delicate soul, I

have been consumed by an innermost need to correspond with you, to

reveal to you all that is hidden in my heart, to unburden before you all

that is concealed and confined in my soul. I imagine always that my soul

will then find solace, unburdened of a heavy load of stones. My stifled

thoughts and unspoken words will find proper expression in my letter,

and they will surely achieve their object, for in your honor they will find

a person who will understand them and sense them.

Thus I thought, and thus I desired all year. But not merely one

thought and one desire do I harbor in my heart and hollow them out a

deep grave therein. Much have I experienced in such matters. All my

life is one long chain of suppressed desires, concealed ideas, shatteredcravings and wishes. And indeed I was forced to do so with this particu-

lar desire as well. Thus dictated the circumstances of my accursed life,

and who shall oppose them.

But now the opportunity has beckoned, and I have sent you my por-

trait; far be it from me to deny that, apart from sending my portrait to

youa person whom I think of as a dear and highly respected friend,

deeming it a great honor for myself if my portrait should be in your pos-

sessionapart from that, I had another, covert, intention. I wished you

to see and recognize all the duality and two-facedness of my world, to

apprehend the great difference and distance between my inner world

and my outer world. I thought, therefore, to let your honor gaze at my

portrait, see all the wretchedness and ugliness in my clothing, and con-

clude there from by logical analogy as to the whole picture, all the exter-

nal trappings of my life. I wished you to recognize all the darkness and

gloom around me, to inspect at once my external appearance, in all its

fearful darkness. I will then come to your honor in my letterfor I felt

that, despite all the obstacles, it will no longer brook any delay; for as

lava bursts forth from a volcano, so shall my letter burst forth from the

conflagration of my blazing soul, surging forth and carrying all obsta-

cles before itthen shall I stand before you in the fullness of my inner

portrait , remove the veil and discard the black mask from my face; I

shall reveal to you the depths of my soul, the light hidden there. And

then a new world will open before your eyes, a world full of song, a

world full of l ight and radiance, a world full of sublime ambitions and

lofty hopes. In contrast, I shall also picture for you my second, other,

outer world, in all its blacknessthe blackness of the portrait is naught

in comparison. I shall not use many colors, nor heap words upon one

another. Only a window shall I breach into that terrible, awful gloom, to

enable its darkness to be seen in all its horror; and then, against the radi-


16/34


ance and brilliance of my soul, the darkness in my outer world shall be

seen in all its terrible obscurity; and against the background of this

awful, gloomy darkness, the light of my inner world shall shine forth in

all its radiant loveliness. And then, when your honor should perceive the

terror in that darkness, and the magnificence and magic in that light, in

all its fullness and depth, then shall you understand the extent of the sor-

row and the pain of that welter and chaos of light and darkness or, better,

of the light that is usurped by darkness; and then shall you apprehend

the whole depth of the rift in my soul.

Such was my intention in sending you my portrait, and that is what

I planned and wished to do. How great then, was my amazement that

your honor had truly understood, or better, sensed, all this even before Ihad time to write you my letter, and perceptively expressed this in such

fitting words in your letter to my sister.24Nevertheless, there is much,

very much, that remains locked away and concealed from you in my

soul, concerning which you wish to know, and you address this question

to my sister. These words and questions of yours have further fanned the

flames of my craving to write your honor a detailed letter, in which I

shall present myself whole and all of my environment without embel-

lishment. That I shall do in this present letter.

But before proceeding to the main body of my letter, let me fore-

stall your complaint to my sister that she disregarded your warning and

admonishment not to show me your letter. Presumably, your honor

thought and supposed that your words would pierce my heart like dag-

gers, and therefore was loath to distress me. Please believe, then, what I

am now telling you, that, quite the opposite, the impression your words

made upon me was the reverse of what you might have thought. Your

words could not distress me, because they in no wise surprised me. I

might have been aggrieved only by words that surprised me, by new

words, the like of which I had never heard before, new ideas the like of

which had never occurred to me. For example, had I been calm and

composed, stoical about the conditions of my life, finding nothing amiss

with them, and your honor had addressed me with sharp words and

proved the reverse to me, then surely would the pain have been great

and awful, the distress deep and profound. For with such words your

honor would then have been demolishing all the lovely castles and mag-

nificent towers that I had erected in my mind, evicting me from my own

world where I had already found myself a good place and thought it

calm and restful, by showing me that my own world is not good and not

beautiful, that there is another, more beautiful world, more fascinating

and appealing. Like a man sitting in the dark, having never seen light in


17/34

ASSAF 17

his life, the thought having never occurred to him that darkness is not

good but harmful, and suddenly another person appears and opens up

for him a window into the light, to show him its goodness and beauty

would he ever be able to reconcile himself to his darkness?

But that is not my situation. Never have I been content with my nar-

row, dark, gloomy world, and always am I aware of the contrast

between the great, beautiful world and my tiny, ugly world. And always

I say, The place is too crowded for me.25Could your words astonish

me, of all people!? Could they cause me grief and pain!? On the con-

trary, I felt myself consoled by your words, realizing that a great man

like yourself sympathizes with me and feels the wretchedness of my

world. The very oppositehad your honor not told me such things, hadyou proved to me that even a life like that which I am living is not bad,

then should I have felt myself wretched and depressed. Could there pos-

sibly be any person who would say about such a terrible life that it is

good?So let you honors mind be at rest. You have not caused me any

grief; on the contrary, I owe you gratitude for your letter and your sym-

pathy. Therefore, my sister, who knows me well and who well under-

stood your honors intention in your admonition, knew that there was no

point here for such concern, and allowed me to read the letter. And that

is, then, my answer to your letter.

Does your honor know the state of Hasidism in our time and in our

country?In our country in particular! For in Poland and Galicia the

situation is very different. Do you know its essence, its content, and its

nature? I shall not be far wrong, I believe, if I answer in your name:No! Perhaps your honor is familiar with the state of Hasidism in the

early days of its flowering and its growth, in the time of the Besht and

his disciples, and later too, in its heyday, in the previous generation,

when Hasidism itself was still a kind of system, and the Zaddikim

who bore its banner aloft were still imbued with the spirit of Hasidism,

still exerting considerable influence on the people.

As to Hasidism and its standard-bearers in those days, surely that

your honor has read the many monographs that have been written about

them in our literature. Surely your honor has personally perused the

books of Hasidism and extracted the precious pearls scattered here and

there in that literature, among the heaps of ashes of hallucinations and

nonsense. Thus your honor surely knows about the origin of Hasidism

and its state in the first and second period [of its existence], although

your knowledge is not perfect but involves some errors and misconcep-

tions; for hearsay is quite different from eyewitness evidence, and a per-

son who has been reared and educated in the innermost circle of


18/34


Hasidism, with masters of the movement all around him, familiar with

the development of the movement from its beginnings to this day, with

all its faults and merits, cannot be compared with a person born and

reared in an environment foreign to Hasidism, all of whose knowledge

is derived from books alone, from legends, not from life itself. And

most of the books, in particular those of our latest authors, who have

begun to deal in recent years with Hasidism as a system and a move-

ment, are so remote from life and from reality; they are so openly ten-

dentious that a person consulting them to trace the roots of Hasidism

from them alone, be it only through popular legends which are mostly

very beautiful but far from the truth, might liken the false luster of rotten

wood to a brilliantly glittering gem, and an ugly sight in this movementto a splendid, charming revelation. But nevertheless you have at least

some idea concerning the Hasidism of those times. But as to the Hasid-

ism of our times and our provinces, surely you have heard nothing, for

the literature makes no reference to it at all, and in life you are very, very

remote from us. Your honor resides in Warsaw, the capital of Poland,

where Hasidism still has all its power and its influence is still tremen-

dous. So let me describe to you, quite briefly, the state of Hasidism here,

in our province, the province of Ukraine.

In saying here Hasidism, I use a metaphorical name, for that

name is entirely inappropriate to present-day Hasidism and has been so

for some twenty years, since my grandfathers, the famed Zaddikim of

Skver, Talne, and Rotmistruvkaall my ancestorsand their brothers,

the standard-bearers of Hasidism in our province, who commandedthousands of faithful Hasidim, died or, as the Hasidim say, departed this

world. Since then, the light of Hasidism has dimmed and its glory has

gone into exile, and it has atrophied, continually declining, continually

diminishing from day to day, until now it is little more than a debased

coin, a name devoid of real content.

The reasons for this are many, more than can be listed here, for in

order to explain them one would be obliged to delve deeply into the his-

tory of its development from its beginnings until today. But such is not

my object here, for not to tell the story of Hasidism have I come, but

only that which affects my person, my life history. Nevertheless, there

are two main reasons: First, my ancestors did not leave after them sons

like themselves, men of understanding and intelligence, who might

influence and impart of their spirit to the congregation of Hasidim.

[Their sons were] either men who, though indeed great masters of Torah

and pious, proficient in the works of Kabbalah and Hasidism, were

weak, exhausted, and uncivilized in all their ways. Little knowledge


19/34

ASSAF 19

have they of the world and of men, they lack any sense of beauty; ugli-

ness rules all their doings, their clothing, their speech, all their motions;

Or they were common men, faceless and nondescript, neither masters of

Torah nor knowledgeable and virtuous in the ways of the world, their

only claim to fame being their ancestry. That is one reason.

The second is the intellectual development of our province. In the

last twenty years, our part of the world has taken such enormous steps

forward that it has almost overtaken even Lithuania.26A new generation

has arisen, a generation that knows notand does not want to know

its old ancestral traditions, a generation that thirsts for [secular] educa-

tion and longs for freedom. This young generation has influenced the

older generation and imbued them with its spirit. The generation lookscompletely different. The old type of pious, patriarchal Jew of the previ-

ous generation is no more, almost completely disappeared, displaced

either by the completely free-thinking Jew, or by the simple, bourgeois

Jew, neither very pious nor free-thinking, just an ordinary Jew, no longer

with the perfect, simple faith of the Jew of the previous generation.

While there are still many old people of the former generation, but soli-

tary remnants are they, few in number in every city, and they have no

influence on the march of life, a few lost souls. They sit, each in his own

corner and shaking their heads in disgust, heap their curses upon the

new generation that has left them behind, advancing far, far beyond

them. Upon such arid ground, of course, Hasidism cannot possibly bear

fruit, and so it has gradually degenerated, until there is almost no trace

of it here.Those old Hasidim, in whose hearts the memory of the first Zad-

dikim, the forerunners, still live, could not communicate with the sons

who succeeded them. Sorrowfully they look and gaze from afar upon

those who have come to occupy the throne of their masters and teachers.

In their grief, they have retreated into themselves, delving deeply at

least into the books of the Zaddikim, contenting themselves with tales

and memories of the good old days, that they tell each other upon meet-

ing. And a new generation of Hasidim, who do not recall the founding

fathers and will make do with the sons, has not arisen, for the new gen-

eration is far removed from Hasidism.

In short, that first Hasidism, whose name at least was fitting, has

wholly perished. Instead, a new Hasidism, which might more precisely

be termed wheeling and dealing, has appeared. For the new Hasidism

is little more than shop-keeping. A Jew who enters theRebbeshouse

does not come to be admonished, to learn some virtue, to hear a good

word, for such Hasidim are no more; they come to the Rebbein his


20/34


capacity as a wonder-worker, begging him to demonstrate his miracles

for them, to save them from misfortune, in exchange for the money they

pay him for the miracle.

And it is self-evident that such people are most brutish people,

whose very boorishness is their Hasidism. For lo, the great legacy our

ancestors bequeathed us, all the virtues of that heritagealbeit for those

who considered these qualities as virtuesall its splendor and magic,

have been totally swept away. And this alone the house of theRebbein

our parts retains as a heritage from our ancestorsall the refuse left

over from its ancestral customs. All the wretchedness and ugliness, the

idiotic costume, all the wild motions and customs, these alone remain to

them, they are sacred and untouchable to this very day. Such is the stateof Hasidism in our time and in our province, such are the Hasidim, and

such is the image of the house of the Rebbe. And in such a time, in

such a house, was I lucky enough to be born.

I imbibed piety with my mothers milk, I was reared on the well-

springs of Torah and Hasidism, and no foreign spirit penetrated our

home to dislodge me, God forbid, from my place. But nevertheless,

since the day I attained maturity I was imbued with a different spirit, I

was different from all around me. Of course, that was within the hidden

depths of my mind; outwardlythe less said, the better. I felt that my

world was small and tiny, constricted, choking and strangling me; and in

my innermost being I longed so much for a different world, a beautiful,

wide world, that would give me enough air to breathe. I despised the

people around me, loathed their way of life, and was drawn upward as ifby a hidden force. There, in the infinite expanse, above the swamp in

which I was immersed.

How did such ideas occur to me even in my infancy? What moved

me to despise my surroundings, to hunger with all my heart for a differ-

ent world? I myself know not, for who knows the way of the spirit? But

one thing I do know: I have a delicate, poetic soul. A yearning soul, that

could never reconcile itself to its gloomy, dark condition, but has always

longed and pined for another life, more beautiful and far more interest-

ing.

I remember the impression made upon me by my frequent hikes,

when in my youth I would go out in the summer, with my teacher, to the

forest outside the town, along a path meandering between green mead-

ows. Leaving the house, with its all-pervading stifling air and stifling

spiritual atmosphere, and my encounter with nature. Free, living,

blooming, nature; the enormous contrast between our houseour house

in particularand Creation. All these had such an enormous influence


21/34

ASSAF 21

upon me that in the first moments I felt drunk, intoxicated with life and

its joy, intoxicated by the magnificence and magic of nature. I forgot the

whole world, forgot the house and its duties that I had left behind, the

narrow surroundings and everything that I hated, and was seized by only

one strong sensationa sensation of pleasure and life. All those sleep-

ing life powers within me, that had flickered deep within my heart, burst

forth with overwhelming force. I desired then to embrace the whole

world, to kiss the worldthe fields, the forest, the birds flying over my

headwith one kiss. To satiate my burning, life-desiring soul.

But this mental state was not long-lived. Slowly but surely, the joy-

ful feelings began to evaporate, to be replaced by muted sorrow. My

memory began to resurrect my duties at home, my way of life, thechains that shackle my spirit. I remembered that no son of nature am I,

to rejoice in natures joy is not my lot. I remembered how far I am from

naturethe very opposite, I am far removed from free, honest, and sim-

ple nature, which knows no cunning or falsehood; for I, hypocrite that I

am, dissemble and deny. I do what I desire not to do, say what I think

not, and I am entirely unnatural. I love nature, all that is good and beau-

tiful, but I myself, in my dress, my actions, my movements, embody the

antithesis of both good and beautiful. Such sorrowful thoughts and bitter

feelings filled my mind as I ended my outdoor walks, returning home

always with pain in my heart to discharge my duties and to live my

life.

Thus I grew up and thus I lost my way, my heart a burning hell and

fiery furnace, but outwardly behaving as if everything was as it shouldbe, a child of my environment. And so I became what I am now.

Much Torah have I studied in my life. Much have I racked my

brains over weighty volumes of Talmud and legal codes. I have also

pondered books of our philosophers, kabbalists, and Hasidim. Thereby

have I earned a place of honor among the Torah scholars of my town,

and acquired a reputation throughout my neighborhood. And all the

Torah scholars and the Hasidimof the old type, proficient in the books

of the early Hasidim, who served under the old Zaddikimcome daily

to visit me. One comes to me troubled by a weighty problem of the Tal-

mudic text that he wishes to discuss with me and hear my opinion of the

matter; another comes with a perplexing passage of Maimonides; and

yet another wishes just to sit with me, regaling me with his tales and rec-

ollections of the early Zaddikim, to hear a pleasing adage from such-

and-such a book that I have seen, and to tell me something of what he

has read and seen. What shall I tell your honor? The sufferings of the

dead in the grave, if such indeed existas the faithful tell usare


22/34


naught compared with the mental anguish and heaviness of heart that

these visits occasion me.

I am young in years, bursting with youthful energy and life forces.

My ideas are ideas of life, and my ambitions, ambitions of life. But my

bitter, harsh fate forces me to spend most of my days among old men

whether old in years or in attitudes, what matter?mummified, dismal,

whose God is not my God, their views not my views, all their thoughts,

goals, and desires foreign to me. In such circles am I obliged to spend

my days, to partake of their rejoicing, to sympathize with them in their

sorrow and grief, to be considered as one of them.

Imagine, if you will, your honor, the scene: a beautiful, clear, sum-

mers day, the sun bathing the whole universe and world in its rays.Waves of light stream through the wide window into my room, and I am

seated at my table, the thick tomes open before me, but my thoughts and

feelings are not for those tomes at all. I glance outside, I see the blue sky

above my head and the abundance of light outside; and hushed, secret,

longings seize me. I pine for, dream of a beautiful, magical, world,

under a pristine pure, blue sky, its brilliance unmarred by the smallest

cloud, radiant with brilliant light, not the slightest shadow darkening its

expanses. Thus I sit pining and dreaming, my imagination bearing me

on its wings to the farthest reaches. Suddenlya knock at the door. I

open, and there before me stands the local rabbi... He wishes to delight

me with a novel point that he has made in his Torah studies. And imme-

diately I am torn away from my pleasant dreams. It is as if I had fallen

all of a sudden from the heights of magical imagination to the depths ofbitter, black reality. And then the sharp, hair-splitting, discussion begins,

objections and solutions flying back and forth. An onlooker might

believe me wholly engrossed in this give and take; but how bitterly is

my heart weeping in secret, for the ruin of my world, for the theft of my

youths dreams, that I am forced to exercise the best of my powers and

talents in empty, dry, casuistry about the minutiae of the dietary laws, in

conversation with Hasidim about the Divine Presence in exileby God!

Do they understand, feel, the meaning of Divine Presence? And what

is exile?!or about so-and-so the Zaddik who performed such-and-

such a miracle, and some Rebbeor another who worked some kind of

wonder.

Well I remember what I read in Dr. Berdyczhewskis book The

Hasidim, where, after heaping copious praises on the Hasidic theory, he

concludes with a heartfelt cry, May I be so lucky as to share their por-

tion!that is, that of the Hasidim. And, recalling that exclamation, I

cannot hold back my laughter. Indeed,Herr Doktor! How right you are!


23/34

ASSAF 23

But how convenient it was for you to utter this exclamation, on your

lofty chair at Heidelberg University, far removed from the Hasidim and

their masses. But what would you say if it really fell to your lot to be

among them always? Methinks you would have spoken differently then,

a very different call would have issued from your heart, and together

with me you would have cried, May I be so lucky as notto share their

portion.

Duplicity, two-facedness, the cleft in my soulwhoever has never

experienced them cannot possibly imagine their bitterness. Is there any

greater sorrow, stronger pain, than the need constantly to strangle ones

dearest thoughts, ones most sacred feelings, lest they be detected out-

wardly, God forbid, and some harm come to one? Constantly to seeones most cherished hallowed ideas trampled by others, and to profess

happiness, as if in agreement with them?

I constantly have free thoughts, but I am obliged to observe my

ancestors most minute stringencies of observance; I have good taste

and love beauty, but I am obliged to wear the clothing of the uncivilized:

a long silk kapotadown to my feet, ashtraymlof fur tails27that is the

badge of shame imposed upon us by our haters for generations, which

has become holy to us Jews, enamored of the hand that beats uswith a

skull-cap beneath it, and other such ornaments as well. What would

your honor say, were you to come suddenly, not knowing me, and see

me standing among the praying congregation, clad in this tawdry finery,

swaying and praying, what would you think of me then? Surely you

would hold me to be ultra-Orthodox, a devout fanatic. Never would itoccur to you that I am different from all around me, and that under this

showy trumpery of clothes hides a beautiful soul, dreaming, longing,

and pining, just as it would never occur to any of those who know me

with the exception of those of my young friends of like mindand who

consider me to be a Haredi. And how my heart aches when perchance I

hear my praises sung, whether in my presence or otherwise, that I am a

God-fearing, perfect person. A terrible thought pierces and gnaws my

mind: What is this? What am I? Is it possible that I am naught but a hyp-

ocrite, a sham? Am I permitted thus to deceive people?

Thus do I live out my life here, a dark, gloomy life, without a spark

of light, without a shadow of hope, all darkness about me. Nevertheless,

even in my life here, despite the all-pervading darkness, sometimes a

glimmer of light breaks through. At times of leisure, free of my environ-

ment and its obligations, I repair to the left wing of our home, to my

sisters.28Then does a new world open up to me. I cast off the dust cov-

ering me, distance myself from the filth, from the grime in which I am


24/34


immersed all day. Some freedom indeed reigns there, in contrast to the

chains and shackles in our home, freedom that my sisters have earned

with their sword and with their bow, freedom from that fine company

that surrounds me all day. There I meet young friends and acquaintan-

ces, and we read and speak of life and literature. In brief, there I live my

real life, there I remove the mask from my face, to be what I really am,

without dissembling. Although even there the shadows overcome the

lightas you already know well of this life from my sisters letters

and even there I cannot breathe freely, even there the air is full of sorrow

and grief. But in comparison with my own life in my room, that too

may be called a life. So here there is still a gleam of light illuminating

me within the darkness.But what a terrible thought, to think now where I am going. To the

blessed town of Belz in Galicia! For I have to settle there, in their

harem. I underline that word to emphasize my intention, that I am

being married by coercion, against my will. For me [to marry] a woman

from theremy gloomy life here, with all its black darkness, will pale

in comparison with the life awaiting me there. First, I am marrying a

woman from there, a woman who has been destined these six years to be

my bride, but even so I have never ever had sight of her face and I have

not the slightest idea of her, her beauty, intelligence, and understanding.

And with such a maid, of whom I know absolutely nothing, I am now

being led to the bridal canopy!

Can your honor, a cultured person, living in the twentieth century,

possibly unders tand and conceive of this? When I think on itand

when do I not?!I am seized by trembling. I am entering a new period

in my life, the most important period in human lifeand whom have

they given me as a life partner, to be my wife, with whom I am to spend

the rest of my life, sharing my happiness and my sorrow, my joy and my

woes? I know not. One thing only do I know, that there is a certain town

somewhere, Belz by name, and there lives a young maiden, as unattrac-

tive as can bethis I have indeed been told by people who have been

sent to see her visageand she is my bride. What is the sign that she

is my bridethat I know not, but that is what people are saying, and

there is the proof, for now I am being led to the bridal canopy with her.

What is the nature of this maid? That I know not, and neither do all

those who have gone there to see her and have tried to investigate her

character. For how much can be determined from fragmentary informa-

tion, acquired in a few days, and moreover by a stranger, who knows not

what to say and what to ask, and I cannot extract from him a proper sen-

tence about her? Having now to approach her to make her my lifes part-


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ASSAF 25

ner, I am relying on accident. Perhaps accident has indeed ordained a

suitable match for me. And it is equally possible, very easily, that it has

matched me with my very opposite. At best, however, what might I

expect of a Belzian maid? What spiritual development could she have

had in such an environment, in such an atmosphere, where such a sim-

ple, innocent thing as learning to write is a serious offense in a young

maid, at most a luxury. A womans wisdom is confined to the spin-

dle...!29What hope is there for me, why should I delay any longer? The

greatest fortune would be if, at least, she were not already entirely

imbued with the usual Belzian ideas and desires, if her heart were still

lively and open to other human ideas and desires as well. And if the sap-

lings of humanism that I shall try to plant in the soil of her heart, bearfruit and do not find arid groundthat would be my greatest happiness.

That is one of the good things awaiting me in the near future.

That is the central point, and if the center is naught, what could the cir-

cumference be?Even less than naught.

And the circumference, the environment, what of it? If ten mea-

sures of extreme religious fanaticism, ignorance, and vulgar stupidity

came down to the world, Belz has received nine, and one the rest of the

world. If your honor should wonder at my non-modern dress, being so

remote from this ancient world, he will marvel a thousand-fold at the

Belz customs and will despair of even understanding them with his

mind. Let me tell you now a little of their capers, a drop in the sea of

their deplorable ways of life, for my feeble pen is powerless to provide afaithful, complete picture of their doings. That would be a task worthy

of a witty belletrists pen. May your honor gaze and marvel, hear and

not understand, and you will think that I am leading you far, far away,

from the cultured lands of Europe to the uncivilized lands of China or

India, for there, only there, can one view other pictures like these.

In addition to the stringent and precautionary measures that every

Jew has around him, Belz have adopted further such restrictions that

have no sanctified source, nor have they issued from the legal decisors,

they originate solely in ancestral customs. Left and right, upon ones

every step, one finds and stumbles over a custom established by the

ancestors. So uncivilized, so obstructing and disturbing the free course

of life are these customs, that one cannot imagine how a personeven a

person like myself, accustomed to strange life practices and precautions,

but who thinks always of one way of lifecould survive in such a sti-

fling atmosphere, in which every move, every wink of an eyelid, every

innocent thought, any action, the most proper action imaginable, in line


26/34


with Jewish Law, will be met with ponderous objections, on account of

custom.

Here are some examples. The bridegroom on his wedding day must

shave his head with a razor. And the bride? That goes without saying,

for all women there have shaved heads, for that has been decreed by

custom.30And a wigwhich in our provinces is the custom even of

saints and pious people, and most women go about with their hair

uncoveredis considered there a greater abomination than swine. In all

the town of Belz you will not find even one woman wearing a wig on

her head, but all wrap their shaved heads in a kerchief. And on Sabbath

days and festivals they wear a kind of old-fashioned veil, which, if I am

not mistaken, is the very veil with which the Matriarch Rebecca coveredher head. [The veil] must conform to this fashion, it cannot be other-

wise, and all according to the custom and decree ordained by the ances-

tors of my future father-in-law,31the Zaddikim, the leaders of the town

and its environs; and hemy future father-in-lawbeing their repre-

sentative, enforces them, and by virtue of his tremendous influence not

one tittle of them may be omitted.

Picture, your honor, if you will, the following scene. Imagine that

myself and my intended are being pictured. A young coupleHe

has his head shaven, and She has her head shaven. He wears a

shtraymland a skull-cap on his head, with all the other fineryas you

will see laterand she wears a magnificent scarf on her head with all

other female trumpery from Chmielnitzkis times.

A nice caricature! Good candidates for a museum of antiquities!Were it not that this matter concerns myself, I could laugh most heartily

at the sight of such a picture. Unfortunately, however, the matter is so

close to me, so relevant to me, that it may arouse in me not laughter but

only tears, tears over my ill fortune, the fortune that fate has declared for

me in this inhospitable land.

Trousers are now fashionable, but anything fashionable is strictly

forbidden there. So the men wear long kapotasdown to their feet, and

the kapotasmust be sewn from a single piece of fabric, and they may be

from any kind of fabric, from silk to choice linen. But not a woolen

weave, which is forbidden for fear ofshaatnez.32And under that long

uniform they wear their long winter underwear visibly, white as a

pavement of sapphire.33And their ear locks are long, O how long

down to the navel and more, for that is an immutable decree: It is for-

bidden to cut the ear locks of the head and to shorten them, from day of

birth till day of death! And those long, thick, ear locks, spread over the

face and swaying here and there, wherever the wind blows them, and


27/34

ASSAF 27

they seem as if attached by glue to the white, shaven, headand why is

that?To mar mans handsome visage, Gods image. And in this

beautiful costume one has to go about all day, not only during prayers,

girded with a sash.

No lamp will you find in their houses, only candlelight to illuminate

the dark. Now in this generation of ours, a generation of great technical

discoveries, a generation served by electricity day by day, when the

human spirit, unsatiated, is blazing new trails and new paths, striving

hard to find new inventions. In this generation, at this time, there is a

dark corner, in the heart of Europe, where even a simple lamp is not yet

used, even one that might today be considered an antique, and the dark

light of a tallow candle satisfies them.34

O, people who live in darkness!Beautiful furniture and household utensils are a luxury. A mirror is con-

sidered as leaven [on Passover], to be banished from the house.

Galoshes over the shoes are an abominationEverything that walks on

four is an abomination, an explicit proof from the Bible!35A newspa-

per, even in Hebrew, or in Yiddishnot to speak of a volume of the new

literatureis condemned to be removed and banished.

Those are some of the uncivilized customs that prevail there, a few

small details, which your honor will be able to put together and thus to

conceive a full, accurate idea of all their ways of life there. And these

customs are supervised by my future father-in-law, the Grand Inquisi-

tor,36who watches over the slightest move of the members of his fam-

ily, his town, and his Hasidim in general. And woe betide any person

who dares to infringe even one of all these customs, who deliberatelydisregards one of them. He will be pursued and beaten with cruel wrath,

with all their burning, wild, fanaticism. They have one refrain: Eat and

drink, study and sleep, for that is the whole man!

They are far from the world and from life. The voice of the suns

orb, traversing the heavens and announcing that time is passing and will

not stand still, that the times are changing and with them man toothey

hear not that voice. They are frozen, fossilized, standing constantly on

the same level as our ancestors in Poland three hundred years ago. And

if they have developed, if they have taken a step forward and gone far-

ther than their ancestors, they have done so only in the sense that they

have heaped more restrictions on their ancestors restrictions and added

stupidity to their stupidity. That is the blessed Belz, such is its visage, in

miniature. In that Belz, in that locality, am I to settle now.

And if all the happy things in store for me there were not enough,

my father-in-law-to-be is a strong, hard man, one who likes everything

to proceed according to his will, strict, intimidating all those around


28/34


him, la Stolinyour honor is surely acquainted with the picture of

Stolin through my sister.37I shall have to submit to him and bow to his

authority, suppressing my will in favor of his. And I am so enamored of

freedomI do not speak anymore of freedom in its broad sense, but at

the very least freedom for myself, in my innermost soul, not that another

person should trample my soul with his coarse sandalsI am so unable

to relent, to submit, to bow to authority! Those are my great prospects

for the nearest future. Even now I drown in mud up to my neck, and now

I am being dragged to drown entirely in mire, in a pool of sewage.

Indeed, a terrible idea, and the reality is seven times worse!

I know that, upon reading this confessional letter of mine, your

honor will think of many questions that you will labor to solve, and firstand foremost, one central question that pervades the whole letter: If

you are so remote from and abominate the life that you live; if you so

feel and understand how terrible the new life that is awaiting you, if you

so understand the depth of its tragedywho is it, what is it, that forces

you to persist in that miserable life? Sever, in one blow, the bond that

binds you to it, break out into the great, wide, world, that you so love,

for which you so yearn and pine!

Yes, yes, your honor is absolutely right in that question. That is the

question I am asked by many of my young friends, who cannot under-

stand my mind, to whom my psychology is foreign, who only see the

terrors of my outer life. They, not knowing my mind, ask me such a

question; I dismiss them with a brief answer that says nothing, and theyretreat. But before your honor I shall bare my soul, explaining the obvi-

ous truth to you: a sacrifice am I, a sacrifice on my mothers altar.

As difficult as it is for me to sever the thread of my life, as helpless

as I am in that respect, nothing would hold me back, nothing would

withstand my burning passion, the fire of my aching soul, and I would

indeed have taken such a step. With my last remaining strength I would

cast off these shackles, abandon my home, my family, my place of birth,

all the habits I have accumulated since my youth, and travel to a big city,

to study there, complete my education, to live another life. I would rec-

oncile myself indifferently to poverty, sorrow and suffering. I would

accept everything in love, provided only that I could save my soul.

Nothing would prevent mesave just one hidden power in my soul

which is stronger than all these combined, which holds me back with

tremendous force and will not loosen its gripthe power of compas-

sion. This feeling, which I have to a high degree, is what will not allow

me to carry out my planmy compassion for my beloved mother.


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ASSAF 29

This wretched soul, who has had nothing in her life, all of whose

life is one terrible tragedy, and I, I alone, am her only hope, her hearts

desire, I am her comforting salve. My sisters have never given her much

pleasure, only in me does she put her trust, I am her sole support in her

life. So how could I bear to see the evil that would befall my mother,

how could I, with my own hands, shatter her only hope and cause her

such overpowering disappointment, such great sorrow and grief? I shall

not investigate the question logically, whether that is how things must

indeed be, if I must indeed abandon my future world, which is still

beyond my reach, for her world which is already old and withered, for

her life which is already behind her.

I shall not investigatebecause I cannot investigate. Where emo-tion reigns, there is no logic, everything is molded by instinct. That is

why I have suffered in silence till now, and that is what now forces me

to take this new step of marrying into Belz and settling there. Why do I

have to settle there, of all places? Why can I not live here even after my

marriage? For a very simple reason: My parents lack the means to sup-

port me, to sustain me and my wife in their home, to supply all our

needs. So I have no choice but to live there.

To think of the possibility of leaving there and making my own

way, that too I cannot do, for if so there are only two roads open to me:

To be a [Hasidic] rebbe, or to be a rabbi. The first alternative is of

course out of the question. And the second alternative too, apart from

the fact that it is not to my liking, it could never be realized, because to

be a rabbi I would need authorization from my future father-in-lawwho by then would be my father-in-lawand if he were opposed, I

could of course do nothing to oppose him, for he is stronger and more

influential than I, and no community would accept me against his will.

But I would never receive such authorization, because he wishes to keep

me under his wing for a few years, who knows how many? And even

were he to grant me authorization, I would then have to be a rabbi

according to the Belz style, so what would I gain? Once again the same

slavery, the same wretchedness and the same ugliness.

So I have absolutely nothing to hope for, there is not a single glim-

mer to light my way, the way of my future, only darkness, awful dark-

ness, profound gloom await me. And when I throw myself into the

waves, the angry, flowing, current of life, where shall they carry me as

they flow? I know not. I hope that at long last the waves may bring me

to some shore, for if not for that hope, how terrible life would be! I hope

that this Belz will be no more than a way station, a stopover on the way

to a more beautiful, better life, to that life that I so desire and yearn for!


30/34


Indeed a difficult stopover, but nevertheless only a stopover. One cannot

reach Paradise without first passing through the departments of hell.

Belz as a way stationhow is that to be? Listen and I shall tell you.

As long as I am here under my mothers authority I can do nothing. I

stress, always my mother, not my father, for my father is cold-tempered

and will not feel such pain. But my mothershe is a warm, feeling, per-

son, and I must take her into consideration. Were I to take such a step as

I intend to taketo depart from here, from her, before my wedding, she

would be burdened with all the responsibility; all the What will people

say?the questions she fears so muchwould fall upon her. The

noise, the public commotion, would be too much. Here I was, and all of

a suddenI am gone. The embarrassment, the uproar, the questions allaround, from all the townspeople, all our acquaintances, the talk, the

gibes, the wagging of heads, how shall she bear all these? And besides,

that step would be final proof that I am a dissolute, a long-standing

unbeliever, and that in vain I have misled all those who know me, letting

them think me faithful to God and to His holy ones. Why else should I

have taken such a sudden step? This proof, which would be public

knowledge, would be difficult for my mother, most difficult. So every-

thing would be lost, everything: This one too, my son, in whom I have

put all my hope, he too has become a disappointment, and so what is left

for me in my life?

So I cannot possibly take that step from here, it being so abrupt and

so public. Not so if that were done from there, from Belz. My mother

herself knows and senses the great difference between myself and Belz,

and however much she does not know me in all respects, she knows me

more than others and is therefore aware, how different I am from Belz

and its life. Moreover, she is worried lest I dislike my bride, since she is

not very good-looking and may also not be to my taste in other respects,

and so think many other townspeople as well. She is therefore apprehen-

sive and worried, lest I be unable to reconcile myself with Belz, and go

to war there; and she, instinctively, realizes the possible results of that

war... And more than once she has told me of her fears. Nevertheless,

she comforts herself, in the hope that perhaps that will not happen, and I

will accustom myself to Belz ways; and perhaps I shall like my bride

and things will turn out for the best. But all the same, she fears the other

side, the other aspect, and that step would not come to her as a surprise.

And any pain, strong as it might be, would therefore not be new, it

would be expected and foreseen, and so less acute, not so painful and

stinging. The public aspect would also not be so obvious here [in

Shpikov], for only an echo of that step would be heard here. Only frag-


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ASSAF 31

mentary information, wrapped in secrecy, would reach our town here,

insufficient to arouse such a commotion. And moreover people might

find some justification for my actionWho knows what forced him to

take such a step, surely he could no longer bear it. And the shame

would not be so great, and above all, responsibility for my action would

not rest with her, my mother, because I shall already have left her home.

Therefore, her pain would not be so unbearable, and that would make it

easier for me to take the step.

So in the final analysis, every cloud has a silver lining. Perhaps

through Belz I shall be able more easily to achieve my goal, my long-

standing hearts desire, and perhaps, taking the step from there, I shall

have better means at my disposal.Such is the situation now, that is what I am doin

confessions of r yitchok nuchem twerski shipkov

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